


through body and mind, we will survive

by darkluncharts



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King, IT Chapter 2
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death Fix, Childhood Friends, Childhood Memories, Coming back to life, Drinking, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Excessive Swearing, F/M, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Character Death, Pennywise (IT) is His Own Warning, Post-Canon Fix-It, REDDIE IS CANON BOYS, Smoking, a lot of really shitty comedy because i have no sense of humour, everyone HATES derry (and for good reason), occasional mentions of It, possible pennywise inclusion but don't get me wrong we still hate him, there will be later mention of Pennywise
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-19 15:41:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20831375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkluncharts/pseuds/darkluncharts
Summary: a mainly reddie fic with some side ships, some coming back to life, and a whole chapter of a shitty comedy routine





	through body and mind, we will survive

**Author's Note:**

> god, this whole chapter is a fucking mess  
write a comedy routine, i told myself  
it will be fun, i told myself
> 
> this whole first chapter is just richie on stage, i'm so sorry
> 
> as always, fanart of my fics is appreciated if you tag me in it!!  
i can be found on both tumblr and instagram as darkluncharts
> 
> on with the show!

"Okay. Okay. Okay! Fuck. Okay. Richie. Richard... FUCKING Tozier, you've got this. You got it."

Psyching himself up in a mirror was nothing new, but this intensity was.

Tonight's show was practically doomed to be the worst, and this was coming from a man who fought a crazy, demonic, fucking.. monster. Twice! And even helped kill it once! The comic found himself standing in his dressing room at his first show that he had actually written himself. And all of his childhood friends had front row seats.

The Losers Club.

Beverly Marsh, the woman who lives without love.  
Ben Hanscom, the lover who lives without fear.  
Mike Hanlon, the man who always wants to fight. He's not a talker.  
Eddie Kaspbrak, the talker who never wants to fight, he's never had guts.  
Bill Denbrough, the man who cries every night and denies his life's beauty.

He wished Stan could be there, but he had had Heaven in his plans. It was to help the group, though. Stan was always great.  
They'd bought an extra seat in his honour.

There was so much content in this show he was scared to show even strangers, that when his friends said they were buying front row tickets, he swore he could feel a swift kick to both his cynical ego and his balls, as well as himself pppprobably dying. A drink! A drink could fix this.. but what if that made him throw up on stage? Fuck. There were no easy outs from this situation, he couldn't just go through a window and disappear this time.

"Ugh. I'm starting to understand you, Stan. Dumbass."

Richie sighed, moving to the small sink in the room. He took a cup sitting by it, smelled it, realized it smelled terrible and went with it anyways because any other cup in the room had been recently used or was currently holding pens that he had used for last minute revisions in his notebook that held the script. Slightly cooler than room temperature tap water will do for his drink of choice tonight. Imagine going to a bar and ordering that, he thought to himself. A small snort left him, followed by, "Hello, sir bartender. Fetch me your finest cup of /filtered sewer water/. God, I am /funny/."

He took a drink.

"Okay, speaking from experience, sewer water is better than /that/." He poured it back out, jumping a little as a buzzer in the room went off, alerting him that it was time to go on stage. Holy fuck that came way sooner than he thought it would. It felt like he had only been ready for a couple minutes, and was he really, truuuly ready? Obviously not.

He grabbed his notebook and hesitated for a moment at the door. The problem wasn't that all of his friends were there. It's that one of them in specific was there. This was Richie's show, too, that was also part of the problem. His show sucked. He may as well be Bill because the ending sucked total ass. All of it sucked ass, actually. Fuck. Okay. Just grab the door handle, and- .. Yeah, he was freezing up. "I can't go on. There is no conceivable way I could even dream of going on stage tonight, half of this shit wasn't even made to be heard by them, i'm gonna lose my mind. Fuck. No, fine, I'm doing it."

He took the handle and turned it, pulling the door open a little too hot and rushing out. He spent the past couple minutes mentally fighting himself like an idiot, so now he had to haul ass to the stage. It seemed like every person along the way /tried/ to run into him as he was speed-walking through the winding halls backstage. It was a cycle of speed up, run into someone, say some string of curses, apologize, slow down, repeat. He had to make it through this hall of apparent doom to get to the stage where his metaphorical hanging was taking place. He kept muttering under his breath how this night would either kill him or he would kill himself. He was also currently very aware how terrible it smelled backstage and just how many people were back here to work on tech. It smelled like the halls of Derry Middle School and it was as crowded as.. the halls of Derry Middle School. Sweaty, crowded, smelly, /crowded/- And he froze up again.

Only for a crew member to grab him and push him towards the walkway that led to the stage. "Richie, you're /late/, the music guy is playing to distract, but people are starting to think that you aren't even here!"

Richie laughed awkwardly. "Barely here, thanks, don't push me, man. I'm reaaallly not feeling this show." He chimed in with awkward finger guns, now walking backwards towards the wings that lead to the stage. He was shaking, nervously fidgeting his hands, twisting his fingers over each other uncomfortably, bouncing on his heels. He occasionally shook his hands by his sides as he tried to.. shake out the bad feelings or some spiritual shit like that. "Okay, Trashmouth, you got this." He mumbled as someone went to announce him.

He flinched a little as the sound rung out through both the backstage and house.

"Ladies and gentlemen, here to present his first completely original comedy show entitled 'Mover Awayer', is the man himself, Richie 'Trrrashmouth' Tozieeeeerrrr!"

Richie's old performer instinct kicked in as a smile flew to his face and he walked out. Past the curtains and onto the stage with a couple waves as he made his way to the mic and then adjusted it to be better fit to his 6'1" stature, a mic adjustment that he'd written in. He had personally always loved a nice mic adjustment right off the bat, it made the show feel more natural, weirdly enough. It felt human.

Okay, Richie, breathe.  
You've got this.

Trashmouth leaned close to the mic, and opened his mouth, then saw his friends.  
Then saw /Eddie/.

Nothing came out.

There was a soft cough from somewhere in the now dead silent theater.

"U-Uh-"

Richie stared at Eddie as the crowd started to murmur. And Eddie gave him a patient but awkward smile, and.. a thumbs up.  
And that was enough to calm him down.

"... Stalling is fun." He spoke, silencing the crowd once more. "I've become so known for stalling in my comedy routines that you may as well call me a bathroom."

The crowd chuckled.

"Usually stalling comes with a- a… a /reason/, a cause, if you will. I used to think mine was just random, because of course I would. I don’t think any person with stage fright really thinks that they have stage fright at first. I think they all just think a generalized ‘what’s wrong with me’ or ‘oh god, i’m a complete fucking disaster, what the fuck’. And honestly that last one’s the truth. FUCK stage fright. Stage fright is just you being a fuckin’ pussy and you know it, and I know it, and we allll fuckin’ know iiiit, you little pussy boy.”

That got a small smile from some people in the crowd, a few chuckles here and there, and all of his friends smiling excitedly at him. It really egged him on. This.. wasn’t going all that bad. Okay.

“At least that’s how it is for me. I think I first… /really/ realized I had trouble going on stage and speaking when I was like.. 8? Yeah, i’d say I was eight. The school was having a talent show, and hot damn did I want to compete. I mean, c’mon, I looked at least half as hot as I did then, and at least back then I knew /when/ to stop talking, so I was the perfect candidate. A total lady’s man at the ripe age of maybe eight.”

A laugh across the room.  
He took the microphone off of the stand and started walking with it.

“Everything’s all set at that point, I get a whole set of ‘your mom’ jokes, y’know, how an elementary schooler does, some of which were a lot more adult than I think even /I/ realized at the time?” He laughed. “Looking back at it, definitely. So many of them involved words a 3rd grader should /not/ have been saying, but whoop-de-fuckin’ do, no one stopped me and now every other word in my day-to-day is fuck!”

He paused to take a sip from a water bottle they’d left out on the stage. He could see Eddie knew which story he was telling.. so why not deviate from the script a little. He’d written it to lie and make it seem less bad than it actually was, but.. at the expense of getting his friend’s laugh? It’s worth it. A small change.

He shook his head, throwing a small laugh at himself for his last joke. “Stupid. Anyways.” He set the bottle down.  
“I get all dressed up, my best street fighter shirt with one of my dad’s shitty patterned button-ups over it, really the /peak/ of young me’s fashion. I rocked that shit from elementary school to college. Hell, sometimes if i’m just going out for a late night drink, i’ll still put on the same shit. An old street fighter shirt that doesn’t fit anymore-” He paused as that got a laugh, smiling and laughing out with it. “-A-And one of my dad’s shitty patterned button-ups over it. I don’t even fuckin’ know where these pieces of shit come from! I just open my closet and find another box just fuckin’ labeled ‘Dad’ and I stop to ask if somehow i’m the new virgin Mary, before opening the box to see a bunch of /shitty patterned button-ups/ and going, ‘oh no, I really am the new virgin Mary’.”

The crowd finally had it’s first eruption into laughter, and it felt amazing. Richie’s heart was pounding, but he was grinning.  
He bounced on his heels a bit.

“So, I roll up to my school looking like a 30 year old comic book nerd turned into a somewhat smaller comic book nerd, and who else immediately approaches me but my best friend, this skinny.. short.. kinda twink-y little fucker named Edward /Kaspbrak/. Fucking Kaspbrak?!”

The crowd laughed, Eddie himself threw a playful glare.. but also laughed.

“Eddie fuckin’ Kaspbrak- everyone called him Eddie, by the way- Eddie fuckin’ Kaspbrak. I remember this motherfucker clear as day because his mom was DIS-gusting, and I just looooooveeeddd to pretend to want.. to /bone her/.” A pause for laugh allowance. “And he hated it, this kid hated that. He also hated most things. This kid was such a picky ass little germaphobe who thought that so much as even /looking/ at a public bus would give him mega-herpes.”

“This motherfucker walks up to me, and even though I know I have no logical reason to listen to any criticism he may give me, he walks up and says to me, ‘You’re wearing that?’ and I immediately go ‘Oh /no/… I shouldn’t be fucking wearing this…’.”

“He then told me he was just joking and dragged me backstage with him. He was helping the teachers make sure everything was safe and organized backstage instead of performing, because of course he was, and it was in that moment I was told I was up first. My reaction was somewhere along the lines of, ‘real shit?’ Before being pushed up by a teacher who then announced that the show had begun and I was first… telling jokes. And I understand that this was elementary school and none of what I had was original, but come /on/. Imagine coming to see one of my shows now and getting told, ‘and now, up to the stage is Richie Tozier, a GUY! Who tells JOKES!’. It’s rude! And even back then, I went up to the mic, I looked at the teacher and I said, ‘That was rude!’ and the teacher sort of gave me a look and said, ‘Okay Richie. Tell your jokes so I can teach you how to multiply by 8s tomorrow’. And I said to myself, 'Well, c'mon, now! You know haven't even gotten to my sevens yet!'."

He took a long sip of water, then moved to the mic stand, putting his mic back. "I actually didn't say anything. I came up to the mic and.."

Quiet. He was quiet. He stared out at the crowd, eyes large.

They let out a laugh.

"... I froze up. And I felt this.. like, bubble in the back of my throat. And I said to myself, in my head, of course, I wasn't saying shit-" Pause for laughter. "-I said to myself, oh.. that's.. weird, maybe if I swallow it down- But I couldn't even finish my thought.. because I threw up. All over the stage and front row of the audience. What a way to ruin.. a perfectly good set of 'your mom' jokes. That was.. the first time of many that I had my performance ruined by me choking up, me gagging on my own tongue. My first show ever as an adult? The first written set an agent gave me and pushed me on stage with? It happened there too. Except.. I swallowed it down, then. The vomit, I mean, I was shit out of luck for words. I had to walk off stage and take a few minutes. In that time I ran. Went missing for the night. True story, true fact. Someone put 'missing' underneath my poster outside the venue. It reminded me of.."

He met eyes with his friends again.

"Childhood."

"... And.. all of my problems with freezing up and running away really come from childhood, I think, because the only time I ever used to freeze up like that is if I was being bullied when my friends weren't around. And.. that wasn't hard to do, because I didn't.. /have/ many friends for most of childhood. Just Eddie, really, and while his little, dumb, tiiiiiny frame, that he STILL maintains to this day, may I add, couldn't protect me, it was harder to pick on two whiny elementary to middle schoolers at once. The second he left my side, that bubble of safety was gone. I had people pulling my hair, calling me names.. come to think of it, this story might be more kink-related than fear related. I basically spent my whole young life knowing that if I say the wrong things i'll get hurt in some way or another, and.. I can face that in a one on one conversation. I can accept that i'm a big mouthed motherfucker who says some gross shit and take the punches. But when I step up to a mic, everything I get told echoes in my head. Tells me how shit I am. How no one will ever appreciate what I do. And it makes me freeze. It makes me want to shut up. Which is weird, considering that shit usually eggs me on. I guess… it was my friends that really pushed me back out of that and into the mindset that people wanted to listen to what I had to say."

He took the microphone again, moving and getting another drink.

"Jokes. That teacher was a fucking bitch. I'm more than jokes. I'm well-rounded, super sexy, and have an amazing personality."

He paused for the laugh.

"... Thank you for agreeing, crowd. Nice ego boost for me." He chuckled, another laugh coming from the crowd.

"I didn't… write my own content back when I started. Fun little fact about me."

"I had told jokes my entire childhood, all my teenage years, all through college, but when I made it a career, they told me I wasn't funny enough to make it on my own. Tonight alone has proved that.. like only halfway true." The crowd laughed. "If I could count the amount of times a fan came up to me and quoted my show only to have me respond with 'what the fuck' because I had no clue what they were talking about, i'd actually be rich by now. Whenever I tried to add my own ideas, they would remind me how shit I was, how I was the messenger, not the writer. It wasn't until a series of events that traumatized me that I realized comedy is so diverse from person to person that if I do my own shit, somebody, somewhere… will listen and laugh. And that's all I wanted. So, after these traumatic events, I came home, looked at my manager and writer and said.. 'I'm gonna write my own shit'. He shot back with, 'no the fuck you aren't', and I went 'yeah, you're right' and did, like.. 5 more shows under his writing."

That got a laugh, and he could feel the pity from it.

"I came from, uh.. Derry. Derry, Maine."  
He went quiet, seeing if anyone would clap. No one did.  
"Yeah, that's fair. No one ever really goes there, and the town itself is shit. And this is about that trauma I got, so BUCKLE THE FUCK UP."

People lost it at him raising his voice.  
He laughed, a little strained, as he segued into his next story.

"Lot's of.. tragic things happen there. I won't be getting into it because my comedy can /not/ balance out that tragedy. But.. me and my old childhood friends, the type of friends you grow up and stop talking to, banned together and stopped it by fighting a clown. Yeah, yeah, I know that sounds like bullshit, but really. We did. This clown was the source of 95% of the problems and we promised each other in middle school, if he hadn't stopped when we were older, we'd go back and do whatever it took to stop him. Pretty intense fucking promise for a group of 5th and 6th graders, but we cut our hands open and everything."

"And… we held up that stupid promise. We came back to Derry, went on a journey of self discovery or some shit like that, then beat this clown up as a group and told him to get his act together and leave the town alone. And so far.. everything's fine. All of us are slightly traumatized and probably have some sort of infection from climbing in the sewers, but.. alive. And we helped the town, even though it was so mean to us we shouldn't owe it shit. And, uh.. when we were in town, just as we were going to leave, my best friend, Eddie. Eddie Kaspbrak, you remember earlier? Eddie… died. Or at least we thought he did. He'd been exploring an old abandoned house and it caved in on him. So we stayed in town for a couple days longer to mourn him.. but.."

He took a drink of water, then pulled the stool the water was on to where he could sit on it.

"Two days later, we walk into the town house and see him there, looking like shit. Smelling.. like shit."

The crowd chuckled.

"I almost cried, but I think I was too shocked. I ran over, I went to ask what's wrong, and this fucker cuts me off to say 'fuck you, asshole' and that was… /so/ uncalled for that I had to forget that I thought he was dead to say, 'what the fuck did I do this time?'. Turns out he was mad that we didn't search the ruins of the house for him. I had to remind this dumbass that we saw a WHOLE HOUSE… COLLAPSE ON HIM! THAT DOESN'T EXACTLY LOOK PROMISING, DOES IT?!"

The audience yet again lost it at the yelling.

"But seeing him again made me so happy that I didn't even care he was being totally irrational."

"And it made me remember how whenever I was scared I would move away. I would leave a stage if I choked at a mic. I would move towns if life became less than ideal. I would run with my tail between my legs if someone was mean to me, even if I deserved it. I.. left Derry as soon as I got the chance because I was scared of getting hurt. Scared of.. secrets. When fighting that fucking clown, I stared my worst fear in the face, and it terrified me so much that I kept.. running. I'm what you would call a professional mover awayer. Or, if you have brain cells, a professional mover. I always thought of myself as a hopeless protagonist in my own film, and I always thought I would die in the end. I always thought there was /nothing for me/. When.. looking my fears dead in the eyes, I realized a lot more about myself. I.. always told myself my worst fear was.. clowns. I knew I had more fears, but I thought that was the biggest one. Every single day, I made jokes about fucking my best friend's mom. I made out with a ton of girls, I tried my best at every relationship I could, but I ended up leaving every girl I was with after a day or two. I put it down to commitment issues, brought on by being a child of divorce. I went to the kissing bridge and carved letters of me and my childhood crush, how most people my age did. But I let the wood grow over because I thought my heart was playing tricks. As this clown teased me through song and threat, and opening a door to a stupid dark closet that still made my heart pound, it made me really realize how in denial I was about myself. How unhappy I was. And the next time I caught a glance at my childhood crush, I realized i'd.. been unhappy.. been.. in denial… been… hating myself... for longer than I should have. I realized at that point that I.. was gay. And am."

He could see all of his friends faces change.. to smiles. Supportive ones. Bev and Ben nodded, Eddie took his wallet out and placed a 10 dollar bill on the empty seat beside his, giving Richie another thumbs up and a patient smile.

"And this is the first time i've ever said that out loud. My.. childhood friends are in the front row, all but one, who passed away, uh.. shortly before the clown incident… But if I know anything about that curly-haired, twinky little Jewish bastard, it's that he is watching us right now, and he heard it just like them. So.. yeah, I was and am gay. I hope I still am, haven't looked at any dicks recently."

He paused to listen to the crowd's laugh, and some clapping, support from the crowd.

"I guess when all is said and done, i'm still a trashmouth. I guess I have to keep the nickname somehow, huh? Okay. One last joke for the hell of it, ay?"

"I remember the night after my first /successful/ show clear as fucking day, which is odd considering i'm a blackout drunk, and there was definitely a loooot of drinking. It was Vegas, because my manager wanted me to go big or go home, and jokes on him because I ended up living there for 5 years. I did my show, the pre-written jokes had a little bit of trouble making it out of me in a natural way, but it was a massive success all in all. After the show, I decide the best way to celebrate is to go back to my hotel and get absolutely smashed.. all by myself.. since I had no friends and was a /comedian/ which is arguably the most embarrassing career you could have." He took a drink. "So I start on my getting absolutely smashed, having sent room service to my room with as much alcohol as I could afford that night. I think I ended up with a good few beers, some whiskey, some tequila, some Bacardí, and a bottle of wine. I finish off the beers, I /chug/ some whiskey, which led to IMMEDIATE regret via a burning throat, and I get the best idea. I find a phone line that was basically.. well… a way to get girls to your hotel room if you catch my really obvious drift. I decided tonight would be the night I get some while absolutely shit-faced."

"And, y'know, i've had sex before. With women. Never liked it, wonder why-" He threw out casually, sipping his water again. "-But tonight the little gay boy inside of me was really struggling due to, uh, being too drunk to hold himself back? So, the lovely woman arrives, i'll call her by her preferred name- the hooker. The hooker arrives and starts trying to show me a good time. I open with 'what's your name' and she gives me a 'whatever you want it to be', you know how it is. You've seen the movies. Some of you have probably even had hookers. And I tell her, hey, whatever name you wanna go by, i'll take it. She says 'mommy' and I no shit scoff and go 'ew'. It was at that point I could see she /knew/ I wasn't interested, so she started to gather what little stuff she had on her again, and I go, 'Waitwaitwaitwaitwait- but where are you /from/? Around here? You kinda have an accent I think, do you have an accent?'. We ended up talking and drinking together until her time was up. She was really nice, actually, I think she was from Boston and she kinda treated me like a kid, but to be fair.. I was only 21 and I looked about 40 but sounded about 16, so. She was right in treating me like a fucking toddler. Isn't that all that drunk people are?"

"I guess if I want you take any lessons from this, it's these. Stage fright is just you being a pussy, having a friend makes being scared easier, clowns are the problem 95% of the time, hookers can make good friends, and you're probably gay but in denial."

He let the audience have their last laugh before standing and giving a wave to the crowd.

"I'm Richie Tozier, thanks for coming."

And he had the best series of clapping and cheers he had had in a long time, his friends' voices seeming to out-shout the rest of the crowd. He waved to them for a moment before walking off stage, yelling out a last thank you to the crowd.

Much like going downhill after an uphill hike.. navigating back to his dressing room felt much easier now that the show was over and had gone alright. Now he could just sit and rest before going home. No distractions. He'd say hi to his friends tomorrow night.

He got into his dressing room, taking off his jacket and starting to unbutton his pants to get changed… when there was a knock on the dressing room door.

He knew this would happen.  
Jesus fucking christ, he really hated his friends sometimes.


End file.
